1891-92.] Prof. Sir Wm. Turner on the Lesser Rorqual. 49 
Colour . — The integument of the dorsum of the head, of the back 
of the body, of the dorsal fin, of the dorsum of the tail, of the side 
of the body for about half-way down, and the integument covering 
the upper and outer* surface of the lower jaw, and that of the under 
surface of the flipper, possessed a rich, shining black lustre ; but a 
thin greyish band passed for several inches horizontally backwards 
behind the blow-holes. The skin of the ridges and .furrows below 
the mouth, that of the sides of the body below the level of the 
flippers, and the corresponding part of the ventral surface, was 
white. Immediately behind the furrows the white tint of the 
belly was blood-stained. As one passed backwards blackish spots 
were interspersed amidst the white surface, so that it assumed a 
slaty grey colour, which was also distinctly seen on the under 
surface and sides behind the plane of the dorsal fin. The skin of 
the flipper was a rich black on the antero-superior surface in its 
posterior half, but nearer its junction with the side of the body it 
was crossed obliquely by a broad white patch, which is one of the 
most characteristic colour-markings of the species. One of my 
pupils, Mr Kobert Gray, who has had great practical experience in the 
whale fishing, told me that the white patch on the front of the 
flipper enabled the whaling seamen readily to recognise this cetacean 
when swimming at the surface. The presence of this white patch 
on the otherwise black surface of the flipper was figured by John 
Hunter,* and was described by LacepMef in the Baleinoptere museau 
pointu., which we now know as Baleenoptera rostrata. Eschricht 
has figured it,:j; but in his specimen it occupied a relatively larger 
part of the surface than in the Granton specimen, in which animal 
also it was partly interspersed with black patches. Messrs Carte 
and Macalister refer to it as a pinkish-white band in their 
specimen. 
The following are some of the most important measurements of 
the Granton specimen : — 
* Phil. Trans., vol. Ixxvii. p. 48. 
t Hist. Nat. des CUacees, p. 140, fan xii. de la Republique. 
f Die Nordischen Wallthiere, tab. viii., 1849. 
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